Just received the usual IAF newsletter update email, which starts off with this pithy proclamation:
The IAF and its accreditation body members invest significant effort and resource to maintain the integrity and consistency of the Multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA) through a peer evaluation process.
Jon Murthy, in front of the flames of the IAF’s credibility.
If you don’t recall, the International Accreditation Forum is tasked with ensuring the trust and validity of ISO 9001 certifications — and most other ISO-related certifications — worldwide. They are supposed to police the world’s Accreditation Bodies (ABs), such as UKAS, ANAB and DAkkS, to make sure the ABs are then enforcing the accreditation rules on their lower-rung Certification Bodies (CBs). The whole kit and kaboodle is to provide some differentiation between the IAF-matrixed certifications and those of unaccredited “certificate mills” that simply print an ISO certificate, often without even conducting an audit.
The IAF has been criticized by many — yours truly included — for failing to do it’s most basic job, and enforcing the rules on the ABs and disallowing CBs to do pretty much whatever they want, including providing overt consulting and even breaking international law. Since the IAF is a peer-review organization, comprised of ABs and without any independent, objective oversight, it’s not surprising that things go awry pretty quickly, and that the IAF routinely sides with the CBs and ABs, and holds nearly none of the accountable for anything.
But the IAF should at least maintain an appearance of objectivity. They haven’t gotten that memo, it seems, since now the IAF is just going all-out “conflict of interest” and utilizing the marketing department of one of its members — the United Kingdom Accreditation Services (UKAS) — to handle its own promotions. The latest email was sent by Jon Murthy, whose day job is UKAS Marketing Manager, and it even suggests that anyone receiving the email “whilelist” Murthy’s email address to ensure delivery of IAF newsletters. Apparently the idiots at UKAS’ competing Accreditation Bodies don’t realize that this gives UKAS and Murthy an unfair advantage, in that it ensures anything he may send to promote UKAS — and not just the IAF — will also be whitelisted, while the emails of ANAB, DAkkS or the others will continue to get dumped into a spam folder. It really is stunning how blindingly stupid the IAF member representatives are, in that they get so deep into self-back-patting, they can’t even see when it’s gotten so bad, they are cannibalizing their own interests.
It may also explain why IAF has consistently ruled to support UKAS when faced with nearly bulletproof complaints proving that UKAS has repeatedly failed to uphold its responsibilities under UK law and ISO 17011. In response to complaints filed by Oxebridge, UKAS has repeatedly allowed CBs to provide more and more consulting services, despite accreditation rules prohibiting the practice, adding insurmountable conflicts of interest. We recently filed a complaint with UKAS about Alcumus ISOQAR’s “gift” program for consultants, where Alcumus ISOQAR rewards consultants with booze and cash-value gifts in exchange for client referrals, something nearly word-for-word prohibited in the ISO rules; we fully expect UKAS to side with Alcumus ISOQAR, and offer some weak language about having Alcumus ISOQAR “review is marketing language” or somesuch nonsense. We’ll see.
So if the IAF is utilizing the UKAS marketing department — including their equipment, salaried staff (such as Murthy) and other assets — it goes without saying that IAF and UKAS have a special relationship that reeks of conflict of interest. This makes it nigh impossible for the IAF to ever rule against UKAS when a complaint against UKAS comes their way, since they’d be cutting off their own marketing and promotion resources. This, then, ensures that UKAS can do whatever if wants, including allowing UKAS-accredited certification bodies to continue to violate accreditation rules ad nauseum.
It’s not like the IAF can’t manage to create it’s own email addresses, and it certainly should be flush with cash enough to create its own marketing materials, seeing as how it’s at the top of this entire pyramid scheme. So the only reason they might be using UKAS and Murthy is because they are cheap bastards, and instead prefer to funnel that sweet lucre into their boat payments, rather than pay for their own promotions. None of this invokes the “integrity” that the IAF brags about, but rather quite the opposite.
Related article: Forget FIFA, Investigate the IAF.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
